Intentional and Unintentional Torts in Nursing
Key Points
- Torts are civil harms that occur when duty to another person is breached.
- Intentional torts include assault, battery, false imprisonment, defamation, privacy breach, and fraud.
- Unintentional torts include negligence, where harm results from failure to meet reasonable care standards.
- Tort prevention is a core patient-safety and legal-risk responsibility in nursing practice.
Pathophysiology
Tort events reflect breakdowns in consent, communication, monitoring, or professional judgment. Even without intent to harm, failures in expected care processes can cause physical, psychological, and legal harm for patients and clinicians.
Classification
- Intentional torts: Known or should-have-known wrongful acts.
- Unintentional torts: Harm from carelessness, omission, or inadequate risk awareness.
- Negligence pattern: Action or inaction below reasonable nursing standard.
- Litigation pathway: Complaint, discovery, pretrial motion/settlement, trial, verdict, and enforcement.
Nursing Assessment
NCLEX Focus
Distinguish intentional misconduct from negligent process failure, then identify the earliest prevention point.
- Assess consent status before interventions with touching, restraint, or invasive procedures.
- Assess documentation quality because charting is legal evidence.
- Assess communication reliability during status change and provider notification.
- Assess monitoring adequacy for high-risk areas (falls, medications, equipment, deterioration).
- Assess whether policy deviation has occurred and requires immediate correction.
Nursing Interventions
- Follow legal and institutional standards for consent, restraint, and confidentiality.
- Use objective, timely documentation and avoid record alteration/backdating.
- Escalate unclear or unsafe orders with documented clarification attempts.
- Apply fall, medication, and equipment safety processes consistently.
- File required reports promptly when adverse events or near misses occur.
Documentation Manipulation Risk
Altering records to cover errors can trigger both civil liability and criminal consequences.
Pharmacology
Medication tort risk includes unauthorized administration, unsafe restraint-related use, and monitoring omissions. Prevention requires rights verification, policy adherence, and post-administration surveillance.
Clinical Judgment Application
Clinical Scenario
A nurse identifies that a high-risk medication was nearly administered without complete verification.
Recognize Cues: Process deviation creates potential negligence event. Analyze Cues: Harm was avoided, but system vulnerability remains. Prioritize Hypotheses: Immediate correction and transparent reporting are required. Generate Solutions: Re-verify order, complete near-miss report, and review contributing factors. Take Action: Implement corrected workflow and notify appropriate leadership. Evaluate Outcomes: Error is prevented and recurrence risk is reduced.
Related Concepts
- informed-consent-and-implied-consent-in-nursing - Consent failures can lead to assault or battery claims.
- medication-error-reporting-and-escalation - Structured response to negligence-related safety events.
- legal-regulation-of-nursing-practice-npa-and-sbon - Regulatory accountability context for tort-related practice issues.
Self-Check
- What distinguishes intentional torts from negligence in nursing cases?
- Why can omission of monitoring be legally actionable even without intent to harm?
- Which documentation behaviors increase liability after a near-miss event?